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" Without even knowing why, we believe that to learn how to be human - which we have many years to do, for human beings have longer childhoods than any other species, a feature that to biologists and philosophers alike is one of our race's distinguishing characteristics - children must be surrounded by animal imagery. "

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" I worry about the very pernicious way we elevate and separate ourselves from other beasts, the way we rationalize our comfort and ease, our worship of the self, as healthy. It's enticing, but with a terrible taint of evil. "

Lydia Millet

Worry

Way

Evil

" Indeed, the hype around 'Watchmen' is its curse. If you want to enjoy the comic for what it is, ignore the attributions of literariness and the novelistic pretensions with which some critics have imbued it. This isn't high culture, and it doesn't pretend to be. It's good, juicy pulp fiction with a little nuclear apocalypse thrown in. "

" As soon as a regular guy like Bill Clinton becomes the president, he wears a mantle of greatness. He's the president. "

Lydia Millet

Guy

President

" I don't like names that are clever or made-up sounding. "

Lydia Millet

Clever

Names

" About half of all potential future global warming emissions from United States fossil fuels lie in oil, gas and coal buried beneath our public lands, controlled by the federal government and owned by the American people - and not yet leased to private industry for fuel extraction. "

" Do we seek delicate phraseology in politics or other forms of public life? We do not. "

" I've always wondered: is there really any access to the White House? "

" I came to understand that a German nudist, in 1984, loved little more than to work on his or her tan. "

" African elephants have long been thought of as a single species, but a critical mass of genetic studies now proves there are two. "

" Fiction should be an ethically safe space, free of fancy ideas. It should be dedicated modestly to relationships or escapism or the needs of luscious voyeurs. "

" Economic and health statistics, as well as police-violence statistics, shed light on the pressures on American Indian communities and individuals: Indian youths have the highest suicide rate of any United States ethnic group. "

" If I can't find a way to love it, I let it go. Kind of the opposite of the popular homily. "

" The male domination and chauvinism of the comics form is either being wittily lampooned in 'Watchmen' or handily perpetuated, depending on whom you ask. "

" Without elephants, Africa's landscape would be unrecognizable, yet these animals have fallen by the hundreds of thousands as a result of two enormous waves of poaching in this century - one in the 1970s and 1980s, the other, beginning around 2009, now underway. "

" In Nagasaki, American planes did drop warning leaflets - but not till Aug. 10, a day after the city was bombed. "

" Children depend mightily on animals for comfort, inspiration, imagination, and art. And parents have long recognized this. "

" I think that young readers have very strong stomachs. "

" It seems to me that the time for subtlety in our American life has passed. "

Lydia Millet

American

Time

" Snark describes a cynical position, and I'm not interested in that. "

" Shouldn't the cascades of extinction and rapid planetary warming register in our literature? "

Lydia Millet

Extinction

Our

" There is a lot of contradictions of mermaids as a symbol. I'm always interested in contradictions. "

" Domestic realism has dominated the American marketplace for decades now. It leeches into literary fiction, and I don't think it's that rich a vein. "

" The question of one versus two species of African elephants isn't about settling an arcane DNA argument; it's about life or death for these majestic, extraordinary creatures. "

" Everyone desires to laugh sometimes, and I want to make that available. "

" After numerous generations of people dedicated to killing wolves on the North American continent, one generation devoted itself to letting wolves live. "

" Marriage is like the romantic ideal, and yet the trappings around it and the culture about it are really the opposite of that. "

Lydia Millet

Culture

Ideal

" If Oak Flat were a Christian holy site or, for that matter, Jewish or Muslim, no senator who wished to remain in office would dare to sneak a backdoor deal for its destruction into a spending bill - no matter what mining-company profits or jobs might result. But this is Indian religion. "

" More than two million years ago, mammoths and Asian elephants took different evolutionary paths - and around the same time, according to DNA research, so did their lumbering relatives in Africa. "

" There has to be space for play in literature. We all need some breathing room. "